Better late than never, but I like the part where the UK govt has got the countries they are to be returned to to agree to not mistreat them in any way. I wonder if the FO checked to see if they had their fingers crossed at the time!

Doubtless Liberty and Amnesty will thankfully be leaping to their defence. Few in your country can hope to understand the abuse, hardship and privation that some of these individuals will suffer if deported*

thankfuly they can be sure that there will be sufficient legal aid available to ensure that their appeals are properly funded. Doubles all round!!

* includes:
having to suffer with only terestrial channels,
prospect of having to live without housing benefit,
Withdrawl of income support AND family credit
and worse privations as living without double glazing and central heating.

Good move! Now let's see more of the same please.
The ideal situation would have been trial for treason followed by the gallows but i guess this is the best we could hope for in this day and age. Iraq would have been a good place for 'em too, 5 rounds at the target in front, go on.

The government announced plans last week to deport those it believes are inciting or glorifying attacks and has signed agreements with some countries to return them, including Jordan.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the presence of the 10 foreign nationals was "not conducive to the public good".

"We now have good reason to believe that we can get necessary assurances from the countries to which we will return the deportees so that they will not be subject to torture or ill-treatment," Clarke said in a statement.

The detentions came the same day 10 people were due to appear in court under anti-terrorism laws over a failed attempt to bomb London two weeks after the first attack.

All have been charged with keeping information from police hunting suspects.

Britain has said in court papers that Qatada, 44, is a "truly dangerous individual ... at the centre in the United Kingdom of terrorist activities associated with al-Qaida".

He was sentenced in Jordan to life imprisonment in absentia for involvement in terrorist attacks there in 1998

Click to expand...

This Abu Qatada sounds a dangerous fellow and no mistake. It was very good of the Government to identify this threat to national security, and banged him up as soon as he set foot on this sceptered Isle no doubt?

Â£180,000 is discovered in account of radical
By Sean O'Neill(Filed: 18/10/2001)

INVESTIGATORS discovered Â£180,000 in a London bank account held by a radical Muslim cleric accused of fomenting and financing terrorism.

Sheikh Abu Qatada, who lives on benefits in Acton, west London, had his assets frozen at the weekend after appearing on a Treasury list of people suspected of "committing or providing material support for acts of terrorism".

He has been convicted in his absence in Jordan and sentenced to life imprisonment for his alleged involvement in a series of explosions there in 1998.

The Jordanian authorities also believe that Qatada, 40, a Palestinian, played a key role in financing a plan to launch co-ordinated terrorist attacks to coincide with the millennium.

Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network is believed to have devised the millennium bombings plan. The attacks were foiled with the arrest in Jordan of 13 extremists, some of whom are reported to have named Qatada as a key figure in the plot.

Qatada was one of six men arrested in London in February as part of Operation Odin, a clamp-down on suspected Islamic terrorists. He was later released without charge.

The cleric, who is thought to have met bin Laden in 1989 while working as a teacher in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, close to the Afghan border, has also been linked with Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, the so-called 20th hijacker connected with the September 11 atrocities.

Terror links in Europe: MI5 knew for years of London mosque's roleSUNDAY NOVEMBER 25 2001
DAVID LEPPARD

MI5 was warned more than two years ago that an Islamic cleric said to be Osama Bin Laden's 'European ambassador' was using his mosque in London to raise money for a Muslim holy war in Afghanistan and to issue decrees justifying the murder of women and children.
A former MI5 agent claimed last week that intelligence chiefs failed to act after he told them that about 20 members of a group with links to Bin Ladenï¿½s Al-Qaeda network were operating inside the mosque.

The informer said several of the men were engaged in a counterfeit credit card ring that raised tens of thousands of pounds to fund terrorist activities abroad. The cards were sold for Â£ 150 each to dozens of supporters of Abu Qatada, the cleric, who then used them to buy electrical goods, furniture and clothes.

The goods were then resold on the black market. Some of the profits went to buy communications equipment such as satellite telephones, computers and, it is believed, weapons in eastern Europe. The goods were then shipped to Islamic fighters in Algeria and Afghanistan.

A Spanish judge said last week that the leader of an Al-Qaeda cell in Madrid that had direct links to the September 11 attacks on the United States had visited Britain to make contact with the cleric.

Details of the warnings given to MI5 about Qatada, a Palestinian, have been disclosed for the first time by Reda Hassaine, who said he was paid to infiltrate the mosque in north London.

Hassaine said that in 1999 he was instructed by his MI5 handler to meet Qatada twice a month and infiltrate Bin Laden's network in London. The operation ended abruptly last year after one of Qatada's bodyguards became suspicious and beat up Hassaine.

Last week Hassaine said Qatada should have been detained by police. However, his MI5 handlers told him that, despite his dossier of allegations, there was 'no evidence' that Qatada had committed any crime in Britain and that it was not possible to deport him.

Whitehall sources have privately confirmed that Hassaine was involved in an intelligence-gathering operation against Qatada but declined to explain why they have not taken further action.